Prince Rupert's Tower
Fansided

Moyes and Pereira head current Everton shortlist

By Matt Townsend

TURIN, ITALY - MAY 09: Leonardo Jardim head coach of AS Monaco looks on during the UEFA Champions League Semi Final second leg match between Juventus and AS Monaco at Juventus Stadium on May 9, 2017 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
TURIN, ITALY - MAY 09: Leonardo Jardim head coach of AS Monaco looks on during the UEFA Champions League Semi Final second leg match between Juventus and AS Monaco at Juventus Stadium on May 9, 2017 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

There has still been no firm news from the club on who is going to be replacing Marco Silva long-term at Everton, although media reports today suggest the board have begun to draw up a shortlist of names.

Stories in the Daily Mirror indicate Everton are slowly inching towards making that much-anticipated permanent appointment. In the meantime, the Mirror say Duncan Ferguson’s impact and Saturday’s win over Chelsea, gives the board a little more breathing space to make a decision.

It therefore seems likely that Ferguson will be in charge when Everton travel up the M62 to take on Manchester United next Sunday.

In particular the paper claims the Blues are continuing to ponder the merits of re-appointing David Moyes, with the Shanghai SIPG manager Vitor Pereira now the other leading candidate. This interest in Pereira emerged just last week as we reported.

As usual the powers that be at Everton seem to have an uncanny ability to create an impression of a lack of coherence as they go about this process. There seems to be a bit of a scatter-gun approach to selecting potential candidates, with names almost emerging at random.

All this is hardly reassuring to Evertonians who are desperate for the club not to make a mess of this next appointment.

Further adding to this impression, the Mirror say the Toffees are now also supposedly taking a look at the former Monaco boss Leonardo Jardim, among others, as they search for the right man to replace Silva.

Of course, as always this is paper talk and there might well be basically nothing in it. The stories about Pereira though do seem to have some solid foundation and we know that Chairman Bill Kenwright is still a strong supporter of Moyes coming back to Goodison Park.

I’ve already said I don’t believe Moyes returning is the right decision. Unless it was very clearly understood by all parties that he was an interim coach until the end of the season with a permanent manager then ready to come in the summer.

More from Prince Rupert's Tower

Giving him the job on a permanent basis, would I think be a real backward step for the club. Not only has the game moved on since Moyes was last at Goodison, but in truth his re-appointment would send the message that Everton don’t believe they can or should, try to compete for the best players or coaches and aim for the top of the Premier League.

This cycle of underachievement and lack of ambition simply has to be broken. Whoever steps into the job, must have a solid track record of achievement behind him.

That doesn’t mean necessarily having won trophies or league titles, although that would be nice for a change, but at least to have a history of continued development and improvement in the teams they’ve coached, that indicates the innate quality of the individual concerned.

Home/Everton FC News